A Gmail Warning, Plus A Reader Asks Which Is Better – Old Or New Media Internet Marketing?

If you are a Gmail user you have may have noticed that Google updated the interface to include some new tabs.

The scary thing about this is they are automatically filtering your messages away from your inbox into these tabs based on where they think the message best fits. Like this…

One of the tabs is called “Promotions” (what a horrible name!) and unfortunately for newsletters like this one you are reading now, it will likely be sent straight to your promotions tab in there with all your online shopping emails for clothes and gadgets and bath soap etc.

That is not good for you or for me.

What you need to do is either do what I did, and turn off the tabs completely (I don’t like people filtering my messages unless it is me doing the filtering!)…

Or drag and drop my email from the Promotions tab into the Primary tab and tell Gmail to always keep my newsletter there.

Okay, thanks for doing that, now lets get back to business…

Which Is Better, The Old Or The New?

EJ Newsletter subscriber Zsolt recently sent through a message asking a very timely question. Here it is in summary –

Zsolt From Hungary Asks…

Over the past years I have played with blogging and even had some success with an astronomy video blog. But these experiences taught me one thing: blogging is not really my thing.

I just could not keep posting on a regular basis. Blogging is a marathon, a long term commitment to putting out great content and build a loyal following over several months, maybe even years. It’s just not my cup of tea. I am not good at it.

I have been pulled more to the “traditional” IM route. You know, setting up optin pages, sales funnels, creating automated systems to sell online courses.

I do like to teach, creating educational materials, and I do love setting up systems and automating the process. But the web is full of people saying how this day and age traditional internet marketing is dying and you need to be social, be everywhere, blog, build a following on FB, etc.

In other words, you need to put yourself out every single day and create content day in and out on various social platforms. If you don’t do it, you won’t survive for long. At least, this is the impression I get.

So I guess my question is: what’s your take on this?

Am I doomed if I try to build automated sales funnels around my courses (my niche is positive psychology and well-being) without building an authority blog and a following first?

As I look around on the web, many marketers still follow this approach (like Eben Pagan, Jeff Walker, Rich Scheffren, etc). Their approach resonates with me more than the “social, web 2.0 or whatever” approach. But I constantly doubt myself.

Is driving paid traffic to a squeeze page then following-up with solid content, video series, webinars and yes, a pitch too at the end still a viable approach these days?

What a great question and so pertinent to the current internet marketing landscape.

I went to town with my response to Zsolt, including a comparison of two internet marketers, Adam Short and Pat Flynn, who are basically in the same space but doing very different things.

You can read my response here, which might surprise you –

Which Is Better: New Media Marketing Or Old School Internet Marketing?

That’s it for this newsletter. Fingers crossed next week I will be releasing my new Productivity and Mindset Guide For Professional Bloggers, so stay tuned for that.

I’ll talk to you in the next newsletter,

Yaro Starak

Yaro.Blog

P.S. If you have any questions about blogging or selling information products, just hit reply to this email and let know where you are stuck (and yes I really do respond to emails personally, or sometimes even write entire blog posts in response!).